Defending Childhood Technical Assistance

This continuation award is being funded as one of a cohort of related Defending Childhood projects directed at (1) developing and implementing community initiatives that prevent and respond to children's exposure to violence; and, (2) providing resources and expertise to assist communities develop effective public awareness strategies about children and youth exposed to violence. The two-fold purpose of this program is to continue to support the Defending Childhood demonstration projects in multiple communities and to leverage the investment in those communities by providing resources for training and technical assistance services thru this award. This project continues to further the mission of the Child Protection Division by implementing program elements and producing deliverables as agreed upon in the project plan approved by OJJDP.
NCA/NCF

OJJDP's State and Community Development Awards program was established to provide grants and cooperative agreements to organizations that OJJDP has selected for funds in prior years. This program has been authorized by an Act appropriating funds for the Department of Justice.

Part of the Defending Childhood Initiative, the Attorney General's Children Exposed to Violence Demonstration Program is structured to develop and support comprehensive community-based strategic planning and implementation efforts to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in their homes, schools, and communities.

Futures Without Violence will continue to serve as the training and technical assistance (TTA) provider for the Defending Childhood Initiative charged to support the demonstration program sites, OJJDP and other stakeholders in their efforts to: reduce the negative impact of childhood exposure to violence; develop and implement activities that prevent children's initial and repeated exposure to violence and promote resilience and well-being; create trauma-informed procedures and protocols within existing systems; enhance and expand the identification, screening and assessment of children and youth who have been traumatized by violence; enhance treatment and increase the adaptation of evidence-based interventions for children and families; support trauma-informed education programs for diverse professionals who work with children; expand local and national public awareness of the consequences of children exposed to violence; and increase knowledge and awareness by advancing scientific inquiry on the causes and characteristics of childhood exposure to violence.

Futures Without Violence has proposed to do this by:

1. Providing direct technical assistance to the eight Defending Childhood sites.
2. Developing a national public awareness and engagement campaign on childhood exposure to violence.
3. Helping to sustain and expand accomplishments by developing a Defending Childhood program model for adaptation and replication in other communities and by developing a return-on-investment case for this model.
4. Working with OJJDP and other federal agencies to develop peer-to-peer cross training opportunities for multiple sites working on children exposed to violence initiatives.
5. Developing and test a Defending Childhood curriculum that could be used nationally to enhance skills of multi-disciplinary professionals involved in Defending Childhood sites
6. Supporting at least two cross-sector activities and events designed to support collaboration among stakeholders involved in addressing children's exposure to violence.
NCA/NCF

OJJDP's State and Community Development Continuation Awards program was established to provide grants and cooperative agreements to organizations that OJJDP has selected for funding in prior years. This program has been authorized by an Act appropriating funds for the Department of Justice.

Part of the Defending Childhood Initiative, the Attorney General's Children Exposed to Violence Demonstration Program is structured to develop and support comprehensive community-based strategic planning and implementation efforts to prevent and reduce the impact of children's exposure to violence in their homes, schools, and communities. Futures Without Violence will continue to support the Defending Childhood Initiative with the development of the DOJ Defending Childhood Public Awareness Campaign. The goal of this project is to launch a multi-year national effort that raises awareness about the urgency and prevalence of childhood exposure to violence and its traumatic consequences. The primary population to be reached will be adults – who regularly interact with children – in an effort to motivate them to take action and help children heal and thrive. Ultimately, children, youth, their families and the community at large will be served.

The objectives of the National Public Awareness campaign are to: (a) raise awareness about the prevalence, urgency, and impact of children’s exposure to community (including school) or family violence and the trauma that results; (b) help change the public’s perception from children labeled as “angry, bad, withdrawn, or acting out” to seeing them as kids who “have been hurt and need our help”; and (c) motivate adults who regularly interact with children to be a caring, concerned, and supportive adult figure in children’s lives, primarily in school, community, and health settings. These goals strive to address the recommendations of the Attorney General’s Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence to ensure universal public awareness of the crisis of children exposed to violence and change social norms to protect children from violence and its harmful effects. CA/NCF